Gravitational Equations For Falling
by setepenre-set
Summary: How Megamind falls in love with Roxanne Ritchi. (pre-movie, canon compliant.) Don't copy to another site.
1. Chapter 1

The first time he sees her, he just glances at her, really.

He thinks, later, that the moment should have had more—emphasis, somehow, should have paused and slowed and spun out like something made of honey or molten glass.

(gravitational time dilation; time slowing down near massive things due to the strength of their gravitational fields, and if there's ever an event that should have warped Megamind's personal perception of the fabric of spacetime, it's his first sight of Roxanne Ritchi.)

Instead it's just—a glance.

He's on the rooftop of a building, three stories up, out of breath and dodging blasts from Metro Man's laser eyes. Minion and the brainbots have escaped, according to the contingency plan they worked out ahead of time for this evil plot, so it's just Megamind up there, running along the very edge of the rooftop. In between one step and the next, he glances down and sees—

—a flash of light and movement—the shutter of a camera clicking at him, and then the camera moves and he sees the face behind it, a woman's face tilted up and looking at him.

She's standing—standing, not crouching or cowering or fleeing—beside a parked car, snapping photographs of the fight from up close; much closer than anyone else; interesting that she hasn't taken cover with the rest of the terrified citizenry—

(oh wow; _brave_ ; that's interesting)

Megamind glances away from her and dives for cover behind an electrical box.

The sudden heat and ominous zap noise as Metro Man's lasers hit the box tell him that this move was an unfortunate one, even before the wiring begins to spark dangerously, the exposed circuitry crackling and spitting. Megamind holds up a hand, trying to shield his face and looks around frantically—

 _(he needs to get out of here, needs to get off of this roof, needs to get down to the ground where he might have a hope of getting away; needs to—)_

Megamind takes off running for the far edge of the roof; the next building isn't so very far away; he can make it if he jumps—

 _Or_ , Megamind reflects in the instant that he hurtles off the rooftop and into space, _possibly not._

 _This is it,_ he thinks, almost calmly. _This is how he dies._ Misjudging the distance between two rooftops and slamming face first into a brick wall. This is—

Windowsill! Yes! He can—

Megamind twists in the air as he falls, trying to change his trajectory just enough to—

His boots hit the ledge of the windowsill and his forehead hits the glass of the window rather painfully. For one frantic moment, he scrabbles wildly for a handhold, but there's nothing for his fingers to grip, and the ledge is too narrow for him to balance on and he's going to fall going to fall going to die—

Something to his right, just in his line of vision—a fire escape, one floor down and slightly over.

Megamind bends his knees and pushes off of the window ledge, leaping backwards into the air again, falling once more, but in a sideways arc this time.

He lands hard on the rickety metal platform, one ankle twisting and the back of his head slamming into the railing, making him see glittery little flashes of light at the edges of his vision. Then twin red laser beams just barely miss him, searing the brick in front of him, starting to slice through the metal of the platform.

Megamind vaults over the side of the fire escape, and then he's falling again oh this is just fantastic—

He hits the ground hard in a crouch, the shock of it shooting painfully through his feet and legs and knees, through the fingers of the hand he's put down for balance, up his arm to his shoulder. Lasers slice through the pavement beside him and Megamind rolls out of the way, then pushes himself to his feet and takes off running, sprinting for the mouth of the alleyway, where it opens into the street. Given the choice, he would much rather have run deeper into the alley, slipped down a side street, disappeared, but Metro Man is at his back and Megamind doesn't have a choice at all.

Bursting out into the street, he sees a line of parked cars at his left; he dives for cover behind the first one, looks up quickly and sees—

—part of the metal platform of the fire escape hurtling towards him, no doubt thrown by Metro Man.

Megamind draws his de-gun in an instant and fires swiftly, dehydrating the thing in midair. It falls to the ground as a harmless blue cube.

A sound in front of him; a quick inhalation of breath. Megamind glances in that direction and—

There she is again, the woman with the camera and the startlingly reckless disregard for her own safety. She's standing in the street now, still holding her camera, looking at him.

There is a moment in which the two of them just stare at each other, a moment in which she should scream, should run, but doesn't.

Instead, she lifts her camera and snaps a photograph of him.

She's only a few yards away from him; Megamind crosses the distance between them in the space of about two heartbeats. He sees her eyes go wide as he reaches her, sees her lips part—shock fear alarm—but before she can actually react, he grabs her and pulls her in front of him, one arm wrapped around her tightly; the de-gun in his other hand and aimed at her temple.

She makes an alarmed noise, but she doesn't actually scream—and she doesn't drop her camera.

( _very_ brave yes; that _is_ interesting)

Megamind turns his head to whisper in her ear.

"You should have run while you had the chance."

She makes that sound again, that quick sharp drawing in of her breath that she did earlier when he dehydrated the airborne metal platform.

Megamind sees Metro Man, flying out of the alleyway, pause in his flight as he catches sight of the captive in Megamind's arms.

This is going to work, Megamind thinks, it's going to work; he can do this! The innocent bystander will keep Metro Man back far enough for Megamind to edge away—or, if Metro Man does decide to come closer, Megamind can push her into Metro Man's arms and make a run for it.

Megamind shifts his weight, getting ready to step backwards, and then—

A gleam of red in Metro Man's eyes—oh fuck oh fuck surely he's not going to—

Metro Man puts two fingers of one hand to his temple and hot red light flashes in his eyes and Megamind knows, absolutely knows, that Metro Man does not have precise enough aim with his eye lasers for this—not at this distance, and not with Megamind holding this hostage so closely; nononono—

Megamind twists as quickly as he can, spinning himself and the girl around, covering her head with his arm and shielding her body with his own.

A line of screaming white-hot agony sears the top of his shoulders like a blow from a whip. Megamind gives a cry of pain and releases the girl. He stumbles away, dropping to his knees.

The girl makes a noise of alarm, and then she lunges forward and shoves Megamind hard.

The move is so utterly unexpected that he doesn't even think to try to stop her, just topples over onto the ground.

Yet another indignity to bear, Megamind thinks resignedly, being attacked by your intended captive, after you've injured yourself trying to save her from being burned to death—god, he hopes no one saw that, hopes no one's seeing this, seeing—

(the smell of burning leather burning skin, and the pain oh god the pain; not just the whiplike mark of the laser burn, but pain lancing down his arms, his back; up the back of his neck; oh fuck oh god—)

The girl whips off the red coat she's wearing, throws it over Megamind, drops down to her knees and begins hitting him with the palms of her hands, blows falling on his neck and back and shoulders and upper arms.

The realization that he's on fire hits him just a half a moment too late for it to be true; the girl stops hitting him.

Megamind, dazed and half-wrapped in her coat and still faintly smoking, stares up at her in pained bewilderment.

She looks down at him, her blue eyes wide, her brown hair in wild disarray, framing her face like a dark, tangled halo.

"Oh, my god, are you all right?" she says. "You were on fire!"

"Wh—?" Megamind says.

 _(is he all right?)_

What—why would she ask him that?

She looks like she cares, like she's concerned; why would she—?

He just took her hostage; she should have run away screaming when he released her, should have kicked him or—she shouldn't have torn off her own coat and thrown it over him and frantically put out the flames on his cape. She shouldn't have—

 _(saved him.)_

"—you dropped your camera," he says blankly.

The girl blinks at him, looking disconcerted.

"I—"

"Excuse me, Miss," Megamind hears Metro Man say.

He looks up to see the hero standing on the other side of him, smiling wide and white and not at all as if he's just come within a hair's breadth of accidentally incinerating an innocent bystander, the smug bastard.

"I'll take it from here," Metro Man tells the girl.

"He was on fire!" the girl says—snarls, actually.

Megamind blinks in surprise. So does Metro Man.

The girl surges to her feet, an expression of absolute fury on her face, her eyes blazing and her teeth bared.

But she's not looking at Megamind like that; she's looking at Metro Man, and Megamind must have hit his head harder than he thought, earlier, because reality seems to have been turned slightly sideways.

 _(are you all right?)_

And now she looks as if she's angry with Metro Man; nothing makes sense—

"I know you've had a shock, Miss," Metro Man says, smile still in place, "but you're safe now. Megamind won't be—"

"You set him on fire! You almost set me on fire!" the girl says and—

Megamind takes a quick surprised breath.

(oh. oh—she noticed that? actually noticed the potentially fatal mistake made by the city's supposedly flawless and infallible hero? noticed—)

"What the hell is wrong with you?" the girl demands, glaring at Metro Man.

(—noticed that mistake and is now throwing it in Metro Man's face; god, who is this woman?)

"I—I can assure you, Miss, the situation was entirely under my control—"

The woman makes an angry noise and gives Metro Man a look of withering scorn.

She looks down at Megamind who is still lying at her feet, and he sees her expression is still furious, and he braces himself for the attack he's been anticipating from her—

"Are you okay?" she asks.

* * *

 _Roxanne Ritchi._

* * *

Her name is Roxanne Ritchi, and she's apparently a journalist, which goes some way towards explaining the camera and the recklessness, he supposes. She gives a report on the KCMP news station after Megamind's arrest, and he reads her name off the bottom of the screen: _Roxanne Ritchi, KCMP intern._

Well, perhaps "gives a report" isn't quite the right term. Takes a report is more accurate. She's technically supposed to be being interviewed by one of KCMP's usual broadcast journalist, a man with a smarmy smile and perfect hair. He gives her the usual boring, conventional questions, the ones that inevitably serve as the interviewee's cue to start the usual simpering, fawning praise of Metro Man.

Miss Ritchi, though—

Miss Ritchi does not take her cues.

She does not fawn. She does not simper.

She summarizes the battle with concise accuracy and a kind of burning intensity that Megamind can feel even through the television screen. And then she points out, quite correctly, that most of the actual property damage from this battle was caused not by Megamind but by Metro Man.

Megamind, sitting in his prison cell, watching the screen, feels his eyes go wide.

(she noticed that, too?)

Miss Ritchi even mentions the way that Metro Man almost burned her with that badly aimed laser attack.

"—is a hero's first concern the safety of the people he's meant to be protecting? Or are other things more important?" Miss Ritchi says, her eyes snapping again as she looks into the camera.

The interviewing journalist, his eyes fairly bulging at this utterly unprecedented implied criticism of Metro Man, loudly tells her that she must have been terrified at being held hostage by the dangerous supervillain Megamind, prompting her with the cue that should lead into the inevitable condemnation of Megamind.

But Miss Ritchi—

Miss Ritchi doesn't take that cue, either.

She tilts her head, looking thoughtful.

"I suppose I was, at the time," she says, "but—really, one has to wonder if Megamind might be more of a danger to himself than to anyone else."

Megamind, in his cell, makes an indignant squawking noise.

"The gun was still set to dehydrate, after all," Miss Ritchi says. "Not so scary. When you think about it."

And then she smirks into the camera, lips quirking sideways, a look of triumph flickering in her eyes for a moment, as if she can see Megamind on the other side of the screen, can see his expression of flabbergasted shock.

The interviewing journalist ends the report quickly, and the program cuts back to the studio, and Megamind stops paying attention.

Not scary? Not scary?

Megamind gets up and begins to pace the cell restlessly.

She'd noticed Metro Man's carelessness, noticed the setting on Megamind's gun—had she noticed Megamind turning the two of them deliberately when Metro Man used his eye lasers? Had she noticed that? She hadn't said so in that report, but the smirk she'd given him at the end of it—

(given the _camera_ , he thinks, shaking his head to clear it. the smirk she'd given to the _camera_ , not specifically to _him_ ; surely it couldn't have been meant specifically for him, no matter how much it seemed that way.)

What a strange—what an utterly bewildering—she'd helped him; she'd asked him if he was all right! Why would she do that? And then that report—a taunt, that's what that report had been, not merely a taunt, almost an outright challenge—

Not scary? Not scary?! He is _so!_

 _(more of a danger to himself than to anyone else)_

Megamind shoves that—

(uncomfortably perceptive)

—comment forcefully out of his mind.

(trying not to think of all the possible safety measures he thought out for that last battle, but didn't bother to actually include in the plan.)

So Miss Ritchi thinks he's not scary, does she? Thinks she can get away with—with—

(saving him)

— _challenging_ him on live television?

Challenging Megamind! Megamind! Criminal genius and master of all villainy!

He'll show her scary! He'll show her—

Megamind, thoughts dancing through his head like lightning, bright and fast, flashes that illuminate pieces of a new plan, a different plan, different from anything he's ever done before—bigger than he's ever done before!

He stops pacing and indulges in an evil laugh. He winces as his laughter pulls at the burns and bandages, and then settles for an evil smile instead.

Show her.

Oh, yes, he has _plans_ for Miss Ritchi.

* * *

 ** _...to be continued._**

* * *

 **notes: I know it's been a while since I published anything; I've been having health issues. I still am, actually-problems breathing which are Very Not Fun. I'm getting some tests run, though. And at least my brain has decided to cooperate with me on writing again! Writing is a good and enjoyable distraction for me. I hope you all enjoyed the start to this story!**


	2. Chapter 2

Megamind is prepared to stake out the entrance of the KCMP station building for at least a week before finding the perfect time to stage his planned abduction of Miss Ritchi. He wants this to go smoothly, unlike his first disastrous and embarrassing attempt to take her hostage mid-battle, and he's never actually…done this kind of thing before, so it will obviously easier to pull it off while Miss Ritchi is alone.

As the station employees all tend to arrive and leave the building at approximately the same times each day, he naturally assumes that catching Miss Ritchi by herself will be difficult.

That part of it, though, is actually surprisingly easy.

He's only been there a couple of hours, lurking in the invisible car outside the station entrance and trying not to go out of his mind with boredom, when Miss Ritchi emerges from the building, alone and walking fast, scowling like a thundercloud.

Megamind, caught off guard by her sudden and unexpected appearance, scrambles, trying to find the can of aerosol-dispersible sedative that he's created especially for this plan. By the time he locates it underneath the passenger seat, Miss Ritchi has moved past the car and is several yards down the sidewalk.

Megamind growls in frustration and holds a quick internal debate with himself—follow her in the car? get out and chase her? wait here until she returns?

Chasing her seems undignified, and following her in the car seems potentially tricky—traffic, and pedestrians and oh this is so much more complicated than he thought it would be! What is the protocol, here? He needs some kind of handbook or manual or guidelines—

He decides to wait, and to hope that, when Miss Ritchi returns, she'll still be alone. With an irritated sigh, Megamind slouches down into the driver's seat to wait.

After a minute, he reaches out moodily to turn up the car's stereo, absently setting the can of knockout spray down on the dashboard.

Only sixteen minutes later, Miss Ritchi comes into sight again, and, as luck would have it, she is still alone.

Determined not to miss his chance this time, Megamind throws open the car door and springs out at her, uttering a triumphant exclamation as he does so.

Unfortunately, Miss Ritchi is carrying three full cardboard drink carriers, stacked one on top of the other, and, even more unfortunately, he's accidentally forgotten the can of knockout spray on the dashboard, so when he springs at her and says "ah-ha!", in a triumphant manner, Miss Ritchi, whirling to face him, does not, as he intended, immediately inhale a cloud of sedative spray and collapse into convenient unconsciousness, falling gracefully into his waiting arms like the swooning heroine from a black and white movie, but, instead, says "fuck!" very loudly and drops the uppermost drink carrier.

Hot coffee splatters the sidewalk between them; the two of them leap away from it instinctively—Miss Ritchi leaps backwards, and Megamind leaps sideways, which means that he's too far away to grab Miss Ritchi, and, instead, takes the second drink carrier directly to the chest when she deliberately throws it at him.

More coffee splashes his uniform, a few hot droplets hitting the unprotected skin of his face, and Megamind gives an ignominious yelp of surprise.

He grabs wildly for her and she throws one of the four remaining cups at him. He's quick enough to avoid being hit by it, but the next one she throws almost catches him full in the face. He brings his arm up just barely in time and the coffee splashes rather painfully over his unprotected hand instead.

(he elected to leave off his spiked gloves and mantle for this part of the plan, thinking that accidentally poking your damsel in distress with spikes while abducting her would probably be bad form for a supervillain, a decision he is now somewhat regretting.)

"St—ow!—stop that!" he cries, blocking another cup.

"No!"

Miss Ritchi throws the word and the last coffee cup at him at the same time, promptly follows up the move by throwing the empty drink carrier at his face, and then takes off sprinting down the sidewalk.

Megamind runs after her, dripping with coffee and mentally cursing himself.

As he still doesn't have the knockout spray, capturing and subduing Miss Ritchi proves to be fraught with difficulty, and when he finally manages to avoid being bitten, kicked, or beaten to death with her handbag for long enough to pick her up bodily, throw her over his shoulder, and turn back towards the car—

—he's lost track of exactly where he left the invisible car, and since he closed the car door when he leaped out at Miss Ritchi, and the car is goddamn invisible, locating it is a bit—oh for heaven's sake; this is ridiculous! This should have been so simple, so easy, so—

Miss Ritchi elbows him sharply between the shoulder blades and Megamind makes a noise of pained surprise.

By the time he at last manages to locate the invisible car, open the door, bend down enough to reach into the car and retrieve the knockout spray from the dashboard, get elbowed between the shoulder blades again, drop the knockout spray, put down Miss Ritchi, wrestle Miss Ritchi into the car, hastily restrain Miss Ritchi in makeshift bonds created by knotting the seatbelt around her, bend down and retrieve the knockout spray from where it's rolled beneath the car, get kicked in the small of the back by Miss Ritchi, drop the knockout spray for a second time, and pick the knockout spray back up yet again, Megamind is hot, out of breath, still covered in coffee, and feeling more than a little ridiculous.

He deftly avoids another kick, rises to his feet, and then finally—finally!—succeeds in spraying the terrible, terrible woman with the knockout spray.

Miss Ritchi goes limp, sagging in her haphazard restraints as her eyes slip close— less like a swooning damsel from a black and white movie and more like a particularly dangerous crocodile that's been hit with several tranquilizer darts.

Megamind, panting, eyes her warily for a moment, half convinced that the unconsciousness is a ploy meant to catch him off guard—but no, it seems to be genuine enough, thank the evil gods.

He glances up and around—fuck. As he suspected, they've attracted a bit of a crowd during their tussle, which is exactly what he didn't want; there are a number of mindless drones gaping at them—from a safe distance, of course.

Megamind, looking at them, feels a pulse of irritation.

The collective—he's not sure if it's cowardice or laziness or a combination of both that makes the ordinary citizens of Metrocity so willing to let Metro Man handle everything—but whatever it is, it irks Megamind, in spite of the fact that it makes his job so much simpler. 'Helpless people of Metro City' Metro Man calls them, and they seems so annoyingly eager to be helpless. Ever since Megamind became a supervillain, none of the ordinary citizens have even tried to stand up to him at all.

Not that he wants to be attacked by a mob again, but still.

Doesn't anyone in this city have any spirit?

Megamind is sure that one of the members of their audience either has or soon will run and locate a phone to call Metro Man for help. And although Metro Man's eventual involvement in this plot essential, this is not the time or the place for Megamind to meet up with Mr. Goody-Two-Shoes. So Megamind swiftly untangles Miss Ritchi from her seatbelt, buckles her in properly, and gets into the car.

He throws the car into gear and peels out, tires squalling as he speeds away, the scent of coffee strong in his nostrils and the unconscious Miss Ritchi in the passenger seat.

* * *

 _ **...to be continued.**_

* * *

 **author's notes: so it turns out that the breathing problems I've been having are bronchitis! And I'm still getting some more tests done, also, to make sure there's nothing else bad going on, too. But yes, I have bronchitis.**

 **(and I'm definitely not imagining the breathing problems, which is what I was half-afraid they'd say; there's really nothing quite like the awful way being neuroatypical makes you doubt your own perception of reality.)**

 **Thank you all so much for the well-wishes, and for the great comments on the first chapter! I really appreciate having you guys; you make such a difference in my life.**

 **Also-it's kind of just recently occurred to me that members of the fandom who aren't on tumblr might not know that there's going to be a fandom meet up this summer! And I wanted to make sure to tell you about it. It's being organized on tumblr, but you don't have to be on there to come. Registration is open until May 19th; you can look up the information about it at the mega-camp tumblr. (I'd give you a link, but FFN doesn't allow them).**


	3. Chapter 3

Megamind fidgets impatiently, waiting for Miss Ritchi to awaken. Everything is ready, everything arranged and perfectly in position. It had been—surprisingly fun, setting the whole thing up, figuring how to stage it all for maximum effect

Up until now, Megamind's evil plots have all been outright fights—different kinds of robot vehicles and suits, different types of weapons, but always out in the open and conducted like battles. This one is quite a different flavor of supervillainy—sinister and elaborate, instead of violently destructive mayhem. More—classic.

He's taken Miss Ritchi to an abandoned warehouse which he set up ahead of time—black cloth over the windows to cast the room in darkness and stage lights hung from the ceiling to make dramatic pools of light on the warehouse floor and illuminate the deathtrap he's constructed for Miss Ritchi.

The deathtrap he's made for her is a thing of beauty, a trio of big crescent-shaped blades mounted on pendulums and hung from the ceiling. The blades are designed to swing back and forth, slowly lowering closer and closer to the chair in which Miss Ritchi sits. Just now, the swinging blades are still; their motion ready to begin at the pull of the big lever on the control panel.

(The pendulums, of course, even when fully extended, are obviously not long enough to allow the blades to ever come close enough to Miss Ritchi's chair to actually harm her. Megamind wants to scare this woman, not kill her.)

Miss Ritchi stirs in her chair. Megamind, lurking in the shadows just beyond the central pool of light, straightens his spine and twitches the hem of his cape into place.

Yes! It's time to show Miss Ritchi what this supervillain looks like when he's at the top of his game!

Her eyes flutter open, and she blinks, lifting her head slowly and looking around, an expression of confusion on her face.

Hidden in the shadows, Megamind gives an evil laugh, and has the satisfaction of seeing her jump at the sound of his voice.

"Miss Ritchi," he says, "we meet again."

He steps into the light.

"—Megamind," she says, and is he just imagining that slight tremble in her voice?

"Were you expecting someone else?" he asks, giving her a slow, dangerous smile.

She takes a deep breath, and then deliberately lifts her chin.

"No, I'm pretty clear on who I was throwing coffee at," she says, tone impertinent.

Megamind feels a pulse of—he can't tell if it's annoyance or admiration.

(admiration. it's admiration.)

"Our previous meeting was, quite unfortunately cut short—" he says, skipping to the next part in the speech he planned, since Miss Ritchi has refused to take her cue. "But—"

"Well, if you enjoyed having coffee thrown at you that much, you can buy me some more," Miss Ritchi says, "I'd be happy to oblige, if you'll just untie me—"

"Not that previous encounter!" Megamind says.

"Oh, the previous-previous encounter where you were on fire?" Miss Ritchi says. "My mistake."

"The encounter during which I captured and threatened you!" Megamind snaps. "As I was saying, it was, unfortunately, cut short—this one, I fear, may be as well, though for quite a different reason."

Megamind trails a hand lovingly over the control panel of the console, then pointedly looks up. Miss Ritchi looks up as well, and Megamind sees the moment that she sees the blades suspended above her head, sees her eyes widen, sees her swallow visibly.

"Tell me, Miss Ritchi," he says softly, "am I scary enough for you, yet?"

She looks at him sharply, and Megamind, still watching her face, readies himself for the inevitable panic—

—but her expression—it's all wrong; her face isn't crumpling with fear; it's—her eyebrows draw together as she looks at him, and then her lips part just a little and her eyes widen.

"Is that why you know my name?" she asks, and her tone is all wrong, too, incredulous instead of supplicatory or panicked. "Because of the report?"

Megamind blinks, taken aback and taken off-guard by the question. What—?

"Of course I know your name," he says, "it was right there on the screen."

Miss Ritchi's lips quiver around the edges, but it looks less as if she's trying not to cry and more as if she's trying to repress a smile.

"Did it really upset you that much?" she asks, her tone even more incredulous, sounding, inexplicably, less frightened and more confident—almost pleased.

"That outrageously provocative report of yours did earn you the terrible fate you are about to suffer, yes," Megamind snaps.

Miss Ritchi makes a snorting noise of amusement, but then her lips twist in a way that seems somehow bitter.

"Well, of all the overreactions to that interview I've gotten," she says, "I have to say yours takes the cake."

"Overreaction? Over—" Megamind splutters, then pulls himself together and draws himself up to his full height. "Your attempts to cover your fear with a facade of facetiousness are futile!"

"Ooh, alliteration," Miss Ritchi says, "very classic children's cartoon villain. Maybe you should try speaking in rhyme next."

"You can scream all you wish, Miss Ritchi!" Megamind says loudly, with a dramatic flourish, "I'm afraid no one can hear you—yet!"

Miss Ritchi blinks and tilts her head to one side.

"Yet?" she says.

Megamind permits himself an evil chuckle, trying to get the mood back, and steps from his own little pool of light to the larger one around Miss Ritchi's chair.

"Oh, yes," he says, "you see, in about—oh, a minute and a half—your terrified pleas for mercy shall be broadcast on every channel in the city." He stalks slowly around Miss Ritchi's chair, his cape billowing in a satisfyingly sinister manner. "While you were asleep, I took the opportunity to broadcast a challenge to Metro Man, calling him to a battle on the steps of Metrocity's courthouse. He should be arriving there any moment now."

"Well, if you've got a prior engagement, I wouldn't want to keep you," Miss Ritchi says, turning her head to look at him over her shoulder.

"Oh, but I'm enjoying our conversation so much, Miss Ritchi!" Megamind says.

He pauses for a moment as he realizes that's actually true. He is enjoying this, in spite of Miss Ritchi's stubborn refusal to follow the expected script.

(no. no, not in spite of. because of.)

Megamind shakes his head, focusing his thoughts again.

"And the message to Metro Man was merely a clever ruse!" he says, continuing his circuit around her chair. "When he arrives on the courthouse steps, I will broadcast my true message—the demand that Metro Man relinquish his position as the city's Defender and leave Metrocity forever, in exchange for your life! What do you say to that, Miss Ritchi?"

He times the movement and the words perfectly, ending the speech directly in front of her, turning on his heel to face her with a snap of his cape.

Miss Ritchi blinks, looking surprised.

"I—uh—are you sure you've picked the right hostage for the job?" she says. "I mean—I'm—flattered and all, Megamind, but I don't think I'm gonna be any too popular with—well, anyone, right now, but especially with Metro Man."

Megamind frowns.

"What? Why not?" he asks.

(is this an attempted trick? her trying to convince him to let her go?)

Miss Ritchi gives him a strange look.

"Because of the report?" she says. "You know. The same report that made you mad enough to kidnap me and threaten me with dismemberment? Maybe you didn't notice, Megamind, but you weren't exactly the only one I criticized in it."

"Yes, yes, of course," Megamind says impatiently, "the implied criticism of Metro Man! Which will naturally have made him eager to prove you wrong! Possibly he's even been practicing with his eye laser aim—"

He bites his tongue; fuck; he hadn't meant to bring that up! It's much too close to the subject of—

"Yes, I'd hate for you to have to get set on fire trying to save me again," Miss Ritchi says, sweetly vindictive.

(oh fuck so she did notice that oh no—)

"I—I have no idea what you mean, Miss Ritchi!" Megamind says, his voice an octave higher than he'd like.

"Oh?" Miss Ritchi says, her lips beginning to curl in that same satisfied smirk that she'd given to the camera after her report. "So you didn't—"

"Time for the broadcast!" Megamind says loudly, and slaps his hand down on the broadcast button.

He turns away from the dangerously perceptive Miss Ritchi and to the camera, giving it his best evil laugh. On the screen above the console, Metro Man's face flickers into view. Behind him, Megamind can see a watching crowd of citizens.

(good; the first squadron of brainbots with cameras are hidden in position around the courthouse, then! which means Minion and the other three squadrons should be in position as well.)

"Megamind!" Metro Man says, narrowing his eyes at Megamind. "Come out and face me!"

(excellent; if Metro Man can see him, his projection image and broadcast are functioning properly!)

Megamind gives another evil laugh, for the sheer fun of it.

"I'm afraid there's been a change of plan, Metro Man," he says, "I'll have to cancel our appointment."

"The only appointment you have is with your jail cell!" Metro Man says, pointing dramatically.

Not the most impressive bit of banter he's ever heard, Megamind thinks critically, as the citizens behind Metro Man cheer. Not even the most impressive bit of banter he's heard today, actually.

"You are mistaken, Metro Man," Megamind says, with sinister dignity, when they've finished cheering, "today is my appointment with destiny." He pauses to allow the citizens to boo. "You will leave Metrocity! Or else this is the last you ever hear of—Roxanne Ritchi!"

Megamind steps aside with, revealing Miss Ritchi with a flourish.

"Who?" says Metro Man.

A look flashes in Miss Ritchi's face for an instant—almost hurt, almost embarrassment, as if she wants to flinch but won't let herself.

And something about that expression—

(I know how that feels)

"Miss Roxanne Ritchi!" Megamind says. "The KCMP news reporter!"

"Oh," Metro Man says, without enthusiasm, and Megamind vividly imagines punching him in the face.

"Having been fortunate enough to escape the clutches of my evil once," Megamind says, "Miss Ritchi dared to question my mastery of villainy!"

He deliberately places his hand on the control panel's lever and looks over at Miss Ritchi. Her poise is back, her chin raised, her spine straight.

Megamind gives her a particularly evil smile.

"Well, question no longer, Miss Ritchi," he says, and throws the lever.

The blades begin to swing with a menacing noise of sharp metal. Miss Ritchi looks up and takes a quick breath.

Megamind doesn't see the rest of her reaction; he looks away from her swiftly, not wanting, somehow, to see the moment where she actually starts to be afraid of—

(him)

—the deathtrap.

"With every passing moment, the blades will move closer and closer to Miss Ritchi," he says to Metro Man. "Her doom is inevitable—unless you agree to accede to my demand!"

Metro Man opens his mouth, no doubt to give a heroic refusal, but then—

"Where did you get this thing?"

Megamind looks over his shoulder at Miss Ritchi. She's looking up at the blades, still, watching them, but she appears to be—

—nowhere near as terrified as she should be.

"I—I beg your pardon?" Megamind says, certain he must have misheard her.

"The swishy blade deathtrap thing," Miss Ritchi says, looking away from the blades, looking at him, now, a challenging tilt to her chin and that sharp smile hovering around the edges of her mouth. "Did you order it out of an Acme catalogue or something?"

She raises an eyebrow at him and Megamind takes a sharp breath of his own.

"Did you have to put it together yourself?" Miss Ritchi continues, "Or was it no assembly required?"

And then she smirks at him.

Smirks. At him.

As if there aren't deadly blades suspended above her head, as if he hasn't just threatened her, as if she knows she's not really in danger, as if he's not—

(evil. as if he's not evil.)

Megamind feels an odd sensation go through his body, as though she's just tapped two fingers sharply against his sternum, the phantom touch ringing through him like a chord of music.

"I—" he says, "—I designed it myself, actually."

"Really," Miss Ritchi says, raising both eyebrows at him this time. "Are you sure? Because it seems kinda weirdly familiar—"

"Are you really sure this is what you should be spending the last moments of your life focusing on?" Megamind asks, torn between amusement and disbelief.

"Last moments?" Miss Ritchi scoffs. "At the rate those things are coming down, it'll be fifteen minutes at least before they reach me."

"I could speed them up," Megamind says, which is a blatant lie; he didn't bother to include that capacity in the deathtrap design.

Miss Ritchi gives an unconvinced hum.

"Maybe," she says, "but a deathtrap like this, part of the torture is how long it takes for the blades to descend, right? Having to watch them—ha!"

Megamind jumps at the last word.

"Ah?" he says.

"It's from that Edgar Allan Poe story!" she says triumphantly. "The Pit and the Pendulum! I knew it reminded me of something!"

Megamind feels himself flush; he opens his mouth to tell her that just because the deathtrap might have been inspired very slightly by said story, that in no way detracted from the fact that he'd definitely done the actual design work for the thing himself, but—

"Anyway," Metro Man says loudly, and Megamind jumps for a second time, spinning around to face the camera and the screen again.

(shit; he'd actually half-forgotten about Metro Man)

"No need to panic, Miss," Metro Man says, "I'm on my way!"

fuckfuckfuck, shit—

Megamind whirls to face Miss Ritchi.

"You're supposed to be screaming!" he hisses, more than a little frantically. "You need to be screaming!"

Miss Ritchi raises her eyebrows again.

"No," she says.

"No, no, no!" Megamind says, waving his arms, "You don't understand; you need to be screaming; it's an essential part of the—"

—plan; it's an essential part of the plan, which involves Minion and the different swarms of brainbots being set up in strategic places throughout the city, ready to play pre-recorded screams which should lead Metro Man into a series of different traps which will all test for possible weaknesses, and the deployment of which should give Megamind sufficient time to escape from this location, but if Miss Ritchi isn't screaming when Metro Man takes off, he'll know not to follow the false screams, and the traps won't be sprung and Metro Man will arrive here too early and Megamind—

—will be punched across the room.

Which he is, before he can finish that sentence.

Fuck.

* * *

Sitting in his cell, later, with his cracked ribs wrapped tightly, Megamind watches Miss Ritchi being interviewed again. The questions the other journalist gives her are even more leading this time, with as little space as possible for any possible criticism of Metro Man.

She doesn't give any, which, fair is fair, she was never in any danger from Metro Man this time; he didn't use his eye lasers at all; the only things that got destroyed were the roof of the abandoned warehouse and Megamind's deathtrap; and the only one who got injured was Megamind.

(which she most likely doesn't know about. he hopes she doesn't know about it. he didn't mention his ribs at all until he got back to the prison infirmary. better that everyone thinks it's difficult for even Metro Man to injure him.)

She does, however, have some scathing things to say about the people who just watched her abduction, and made no move to help her. When the interviewing journalist quickly points out that several members of the crowd took it upon themselves to call Metro Man for help—as though he thinks this just as much assistance as their duty required, Miss Ritchi's eyes snap dangerously.

"Exactly when," Miss Ritchi says, "did the people of this city decide to let a single man handle all of their problems? One has to wonder if the attitude of complacency that evidently comes from having such a very super-powered Defender is really in Metro City's public interest. The—"

"And what do you think now," the interviewing journalist loudly, interrupting her, "about your statement the other day that Megamind is more a danger to himself than to anyone else? Considering your recent ordeal at the hands of Megamind, wouldn't you agree that he's definitely a danger to the public?"

There's a smug look to the interviewing journalist's face as he looks at Miss Ritchi that sets Megamind's teeth on edge. As though the man thinks Miss Ritchi has been put in her place.

Which is, of course, exactly what Megamind intended to do when he kidnapped her, but somehow he feels annoyed instead of pleased.

Miss Ritchi lifts her chin.

"No," she says. "My previous statement still stands."

The interviewing journalist's mouth opens and closes a few times.

Megamind's jaw falls, too.

"But after being taken hostage twice—having your life threatened—"

"Haven't you noticed," Miss Ritchi says, lips beginning to curve into a smirk, "that I'm fine? Megamind's going to have to do much better than that if he wants me to believe he's dangerous."

"—back to you in the studio, Dan," the interviewing journalist says, in a tone of one washing his hands of the whole thing.

Megamind turns off the television and tosses the remote away, onto his cot in the corner.

(god. fucking. damn it!)

He'd like to get up and pace, but his ribs ache and doesn't want to move any more than necessary.

He's too agitated to stay completely still, though; he brushes the backs of the fingernails of his right hand restlessly back and forth on the arm of his chair, letting the movement come from his wrist, like he's strumming a guitar without a pick. He presses the fingertips of his left hand down against the other chair arm, going through a scale.

That look she'd given him, the smirk while the blades swung overhead, and the way she'd talked to him, and then that challenge during her second interview, even more blatant than the first had been, challenging him, baiting him on purpose.

(have to do much better than that)

He grits his teeth and presses the fingertips of his left hand down hard in a flattened fifth, the devil's chord, imagining the dissonant sound it would make if he were actually holding an instrument.

She looks at him like he isn't evil; she looks at him, talks to him, like he isn't evil, and that realization has gotten under his skin somehow; it's—

(baffling, intoxicating, fascinating)

—unacceptable! It is completely and utterly unacceptable that this, this sarcastic, impertinent, infuriating woman thinks she can get away with—

(acting like he's not evil)

He presses the fingertips of one hand carefully to the center of his chest, but he's not thinking about the pain in his ribs; he's thinking about—

(that odd feeling, invisible fingers tapping against his sternum, the sensation spreading through him like ripples through water, like light, like a chord of music)

Have to do better? Better than that? Better than a kidnapping and gigantic overhead blades? The deathtrap, the threats, the evil monologue—what the hell more does she want from him?

Megamind glares at the blank television and growls beneath his breath.

So Miss Ritchi's hard to impress, is she? Hard to scare? He'll give her scary! He'll give her better! Next time—

Megamind stops for a moment, blinking.

Next time.

He tips his head, a thought occurring.

Next time.

Is—is this the reaction she _means_ this challenge of hers to provoke?

Standing so close to the battle that first time, snapping photographs when she should have been running—intern, the bottom of the screen had said during both her interviews. Intern, not full reporter, and Megamind thinks of how infuriating it had been when Metrocity's news outlets were still referring to him as a 'villain' rather than a 'supervillain', thinks of the lengths he went to change that.

(Megamind's going to have to do much better than that if he wants me to believe he's dangerous.)

A clear challenge, almost an invitation to kidnap her again—

(going to have to do much better than that if he wants me to believe he's dangerous, not so scary when you think about it, and then that smirk at the camera, and he'd been right the first time; he'd been right when he'd thought that smirk was for him.)

Oh, she is clever; she is very, very clever.

Megamind laughs, hardly noticing the resulting pain from his ribs.

And he's fallen right into her trap! Already planning her next kidnapping! God, that news station of hers had her fetching coffee; what an utter waste of brilliance.

The knowledge that he's been caught so neatly only makes Megamind more determined to win this game they've started playing—he really is going to have to think of something spectacular for her next kidnapping.

Megamind grins, smile sharp around the edges, and begins to plan.

* * *

 ** _...to be continued._**

* * *

 ** _author's notes: Thank you all so much for the comments and get-well wishes! I really appreciate all of them so much. I'm still sick, and then my cat-the one Brainbot Zero in Code: Safeword is based on-got sick, too, which was much worse than just me being sick. I've been giving her medicine, though, and she seems to be doing better lately; hopefully that will continue and both of us will get well soon!_**


	4. Chapter 4

_"And there you have it, Metro City! Although last year's champion, Maximilian Ascot Valerius III took the lead early on in the proceedings, competition was rough at the Annual Metro City Dog Show, and in the end, the unlikely challenger Hubert Heffernan Gorman fetched the most votes and won the golden collar. Congratulations to Hubert and to Mr. Robert Gorman, the owner of this top dog. This is Roxanne Ritchi, signing off!"_

On the television screen, Miss Ritchi smiles at the camera. Then the picture changes, flipping back to the rerun of the late-night news report in the KCMP studio.

Ensconced in his custom built and specially reinforced armchair beside the couch, Minion clears his throat. Megamind looks over at him inquiringly as he raises the remote and turns the television off—he's already seen this segment; he watched it earlier when he was waiting for Miss Ritchi's report to come on.

"Sir," Minion says, "why are you so worried about this Roxanne Ritchi?"

"I am not worried, Minion," Megamind says, "I am researching!"

He gingerly shifts into a slightly more comfortable position on the couch, taking care not to disturb the brainbot sleeping on his right arm. In spite of all his care, though, the shutter of Zero's eyepiece cracks open and she turns her eyestalk to give him an indignant look. Megamind stops trying to change position, makes a soothing noise, and reaches up to stroke his free hand over her braincase.

"Yes," Minion says, "but—why are we researching her, Sir? Shouldn't we be concentrating on Metro Man? The new evil plot—"

"—is brilliant and almost guaranteed to succeed!" Megamind says, still petting Zero, who makes a pleased sound and settles her eyestalk down again, wriggling even more firmly onto his—by now very numb—right arm.

"But don't you think including Miss Ritchi makes the whole thing much more complicated than it needs to be, Sir?" Minion asks.

"Unnecessary complication," Megamind says, with a dramatic gesture, "is one of the most important aspects of supervillainy!" Zero makes another annoyed noise, and Megamind obediently resumes stroking her braincase. "Besides," he continues, "she said I wasn't scary! On television! Twice! I can't let her get away with that; it could be disastrous!"

"She's just one person, Sir. How much damage to your evil image can one person do?"

"One _reporter_ , Minion," Megamind says. "She's a _reporter_ ; you can't forget that."

"Sir," Minion says, sounding unimpressed, "she's an intern. Who they send to run errands and give reports on dog shows that air at three in the morning."

"And look at how interesting she managed to make that seem!"

Megamind pets the glass of Zero's braincase, the electricity inside arcing responsively to the touch. Zero makes a blissful mechanical vibrating noise, the bot equivalent of a purr, and Megamind leans back against the couch cushions.

"Miss Ritchi is a dangerous opponent, Minion," he says, "we can't afford to underestimate her."

Minion rolls his eyes so hard it makes his body waver in a tiny circle in his suit's headpiece, and mutters something that sounds like "paranoia", which Megamind chooses to magnanimously ignore.

* * *

Miss Ritchi is in the middle of another one of her errand runs, picking up someone's dry cleaning, when Megamind springs out at her this time, and it's really a much smoother kidnapping all around.

True, he does fumble the can of knockout spray, get kicked in the shins, and take a garment bag to the face—but garment bags prove to be much less effective weapons than scalding hot coffee; the kick on the shin, while admittedly painful, isn't debilitating by any means; and he manages to spray her properly on the third try.

Miss Ritchi breathes in the spray with a gasp, and then her eyes close and her knees buckle, the garment bag dropping from her suddenly limp grasp. For half a moment she sways in place, and then gravity takes over and she starts to fall.

Megamind, who honestly was not expecting to succeed this quickly, makes an alarmed noise, drops the can of knockout spray, scrambles forward—

And catches her perfectly, Miss Ritchi's body falling gracefully into his grasp, in the approved black and white movie heroine manner.

"Yes!" Megamind says, then looks around quickly to make sure no one is watching—good; he was fast enough this time that the street is still deserted.

He is just racking up the points today! He shifts Miss Ritchi's weight to one arm and discreetly fist pumps, then stops the can of knockout spray from rolling away with his foot.

Victory!

Getting the can of knockout spray picked up off the ground without dropping Miss Ritchi proves to be awkward, true, and it's also true that he does have to—briefly—search for the invisible car once again. But since Miss Ritchi is unconscious for this portion of the proceedings, his struggles are nowhere near as embarrassing this time.

* * *

Megamind, finished securing the still unconscious Miss Ritchi to the pole on the small, circular, central platform of today's deathtrap, lays her head carefully on the ground, then, still kneeling, turns away to the edge of the platform. He peels off a glove and leans forward and down towards the tank surrounding Miss Ritchi's platform, trails his fingertips in the water, testing the temperature.

Pleasantly warm; that's good. Drowning is threat enough; no need to throw potential burns or hypothermia into the mix. He puts his glove back on and stands, glancing down at the sleeping Miss Ritchi.

She looks much less dangerous like this. More like a garden-variety damsel in distress, rather than the woman who was smacking him vigorously with a clothes hanger not twenty minutes ago.

Miss Ritchi stirs, beginning to wake, and Megamind hops nimbly over the tank around her platform to the larger, O-shaped platform that surrounds it. He moves to the control panel and strikes a suitably sinister pose, half turned away from her, so that the curve of his collar obscures most of his face and casts the rest of it in shadow. From the corners of his eyes, he watches her wake up, and sit up.

"Ah, Miss Ritchi," he says, without turning, "I'm pleased you've once again joined the land of the living—for now, at least."

"Megamind," she says, and her voice doesn't shake at all, not even that slight tremble it had last time.

She stands, the chains on her wrists clinking, and Megamind turns towards her, a slow turn, with a dramatic sweep of his cape.

"New deathtrap," she says, looking around at it. "You've been busy, I see."

"I designed this one myself, too!" Megamind says, quite without meaning to, and then bites his tongue to keep from adding, ridiculously, _do you like it._

(it's a deathtrap! that she's in! she's not supposed to _like_ it!)

Miss Ritchi looks at him, a smile playing around the edges of her lips.

"Oh, that's good," she says, "I'd hate to think you were outsourcing my mortal peril."

"Ah-ha! So you recognize, then, that your doom is at hand!" Megamind says.

"Well, it _looks_ like it," Miss Ritchi says, her tone skeptical.

Megamind gives a frustrated growl.

"Very soon," he says, "you will regret your flippancy at my expense, Miss Ritchi."

He begins to pace around the platform. Miss Ritchi, her chains clinking, turns with him as he moves, continuing to face him.

"I," he says, "am a reasonable villain. After your lucky escape from the Swinging Blades of Death, I might have been willing to consider you sufficiently chastised for your original disparaging comments. I might even have been willing to let you go free and unharmed! But then! You had the audacity to mock me once more! So I'm afraid there will be no escape for you this time, Miss Ritchi."

"The Swinging Blades of Death?" Miss Ritchi says, "Is that what you called that Edgar Allen Poe knockoff?"

"It was not a knockoff!" Megamind says, stopping pacing and stamping his foot.

Miss Ritchi grins at him like a crocodile.

"Kiiinda was."

"Taking inspiration from classic sources is not the same thing as just copying them!"

"Mm," Miss Ritchi says in an infuriatingly unconvinced tone, "so which classic source are you 'taking inspiration from' today?"

"I'll have you know," Megamind says, "that the instrument of terror in which you are about to meet your unfortunate end is entirely a product of my own evil genius!"

"Oh? So how does this work, then? You pull the lever and the platform gets lowered into the tank of water? Slowly, I'm guessing."

"Close, Miss Ritchi," Megamind says, "but not exactly. When I pull the lever, the tank will, in fact, rise up, gradually bringing you nearer and nearer to your watery doom!"

"Slowly?"

"Yes, slowly!" Megamind says, frustrated with her evident lack of terror, "Of course slowly! Very, very slowly! Cruelly, mercilessly so! By the time the end at last arrives, you will be out of your mind with the anticipation! Begging for release! You will scream for me, Miss Ritchi, I promise you."

Miss Ritchi, whose eyes have gotten steadily rounder during his evil monologue, makes a choking noise. Megamind looks at her closely, wondering if this is the beginning of a sob—but no, she doesn't look near tears; her lips are slightly parted and her face is flushed.

"Um," she says, then clears her throat, "wow. That's—uh. Don't you think you should at least buy me dinner, first?"

Megamind frowns, confused at the non-sequitur.

"Dinner?" he says. "Like—what, like a last meal?"

Miss Ritchi gives him a strange look, as if he's the one who's not making sense, here.

"Uh," she says, "I—I mean…" She looks away from him, breaking eye contact with a little shake of her head and an even deeper flush on her cheeks. "So—ah—you seem to really have a thing for slow—deaths."

She looks at him again, smiling slightly, and raises her eyebrows, but Megamind can tell that she's not as at ease as she's trying to seem. He doesn't know what's got her so off balance and flustered, but he's willing to take whatever advantage he can get.

Megamind smiles at her, a slow, wicked smile, and, to his delight, her eyes go wide again.

"Revenge, Miss Ritchi," he says, in his darkest and most sinister manner, "is a sweet dish meant to be savored."

She swallows visibly, then licks her lips.

"I—I don't know, seems kind of…unnecessarily complicated to me, Megamind."

 _"Thank you!"_ Minion's voice crackling through the console speakers makes them both jump. Miss Ritchi makes a startled noise; Megamind barely bites back a yelp of his own. _"I told you, Sir; it's so much more complicated than it needs to be!"_

"Minion!" Megamind hisses, face going hot. "You are embarrassing me in front of the hostage!"

"You actually call him Minion?" Miss Ritchi says, sounding amused. "Really? Don't you think you're taking this whole comic book villain schtick a little far?"

"His name _is_ Minion," Megamind says. "And! And it is not a _schtick!_ "

"Your name is really Minion?" Miss Ritchi says, looking at the speaker, ignoring Megamind's last comment.

 _"Yep!"_ Minion says cheerfully. _"It's nice to meet you, Miss Ritchi!"_

Megamind growls beneath his breath.

"Uh—yeah," Miss Ritchi says, grinning and shaking her head. "You, too, Minion. You're Megamind's sidekick, right? With the cybernetic gorilla body? Maybe we can meet next time in person."

 _"Oh!"_ Minion says, sounding surprised and pleased. _"I—"_

"The next time which there is _not going to be!_ " Megamind says loudly. "Since Miss Ritchi will shortly be meeting her terrible fate! Thank you, Minion, yes! Now that we've concluded the ples-an-trees, can we please get back to the evil plot? Is everything in place?"

 _"Yes, Sir."_

"Excellent!" Megamind says. "Radio silence, then."

 _"You got it, Sir."_

"Bye, Minion," Miss Ritchi says, and then smirks when Megamind gives her a dirty look.

"Well!" he says, turning away toward the console with a haughty air, "I think it's time we called Mr. Goody-Two-Shoes and the mindless drones, don't you?"

He doesn't wait for an answer, but straightens his spine and reaches for the broadcast switches—audio first.

Megamind gives an evil laugh, starting off low, and then getting louder. The sound of that, coming from seemingly nowhere, should give his audience a scare. At the climax of his evil laugh, he flips the switch for video broadcast.

"Citizens of Metrocity!" he says, "I have once again captured the foolishly brazen reporter, Roxanne Ritchi! If Metro Man values her life, he will show himself at the Metrocity courthouse and face me!"

He flips the audio broadcast switch again, so that all of Metrocity will be able to see them, but not hear them.

Separating the audio and video broadcast feeds, Megamind thinks with satisfaction, was definitely the right choice. He has much more control this way.

"I think that should do the trick, don't you think?" he says to Miss Ritchi.

(hmm; if he's going to be doing this on a regular basis; he should figure out a better way to broadcast everything—maybe he can install the projection screens permanently around the city— speakers, too. Ooh, and figure out how to take control of all of the television signals within the city limits—)

"He's right, you know," Miss Ritchi says.

"Hmm?" Megamind says, half-lost in thought, planning how best to install the projection screens and speakers. "Who's right about what?"

"Minion is right," Miss Ritchi says. "You do make things unnecessarily complicated."

"I think you mean diabolically intricate!" Megamind says with a dramatic gesture. "Wickedly complex! Heinously—"

"I mean, why would you make the whole water tank come up?" Miss Ritchi asks. "It'd be much easier to just lower me down."

"Oh, but this way is so much more visually dramatic!" Megamind says, waving a hand illustratively at her, "The water slowly creeping upwards, the glass allowing Metro Man and the citizens of Metrocity to clearly see and fully appreciate the dire-ness of your situation!"

(also, this way he and Miss Ritchi will be at eye level with each other the entire time, which seems much more…polite? satisfying? he didn't bring a chair for himself, either, as Miss Ritchi will most likely be standing for the duration of this evil plot, and sitting down himself when she can't also seems…wrong.)

Megamind pushes that thought away—he doesn't need to rationalize the details of his evil plots! He's a supervillain; he's allowed to have strange and inexplicable whims!

"Megamind!"

"Ah, Metro Man," Megamind says, turning and flipping the audio broadcast switch again. "So nice of you to join us! I'm sure Miss Ritchi is especially relieved."

Behind him, Miss Ritchi snorts. An expression of annoyance passes over Metro Man's face and Megamind hides a smile.

"My demands are very simple, Metro Man," he says. "You will leave Metrocity. Or else—" he pulls the lever that makes the tank begin to rise, then gestures at Miss Ritchi, letting Metro Man see what's happening. "—or else I'm afraid this is the end for poor Miss Ritchi. What will it be, Metro Man?"

Metro Man's chest swells as he strikes an even more heroic pose. He opens his mouth to answer, but—

"I like option C," Miss Ritchi says brightly.

Another look of annoyance passes over Metro Man's face; Megamind turns his head to look at her over his shoulder. There's water washing over her shoes, but she's unfazed and smiling.

"Which is Metro Man finds you," she says, "and turns off the deathtrap. Or possibly even option D—you turn off the deathtrap yourself and we just call it a day."

"Oh-ho-ho, my dear Miss Ritchi," Megamind says, "that's very optimistic of you! But I'm afraid there is no option C or D."

"A hero makes his own option C!" Metro Man declares.

Megamind glances back at him.

"Well," he says, "you can certainly try. But are you really sure you should risk Miss Ritchi's safety like that?"

"Don't worry, Miss," Metro Man says, and flashes his most heroic smile, "I'll have you out of there in no time!"

He takes off into the air, disappearing, and Megamind laughs—this is working perfectly! Actually working! Grinning, he turns to face Miss Ritchi.

"I don't know what you're so happy about," she says, arching an eyebrow. "You remember how long it took him to find you last time? Like six seconds. Maybe you should start running."

"I really don't think," Megamind says, "that you're in any position to give people advice on when they should start running, Miss Ritchi. You wouldn't be in this predicament if you had just run when you were supposed to."

"I'm not worried," she says.

"No?" Megamind says. "Still think you're going to be rescued? Taking a bit long this time, isn't it? How long did you say it would take? Six seconds, wasn't it?"

Miss Ritchi tilts her head, frowning. Megamind begins to circle her slowly, walking with deliberate steps around the platform. She turns in a slow circle, following him.

"Let's count, shall we?" he says. "One…two…three…four…five… _six_."

He stops moving and makes a show of looking around, then turns to face Miss Ritchi again, spreading his hands in mock surprise.

"Well, would you look at that!" he says. "No Metro Man."

Miss Ritchi's eyes glance around, too. Megamind watches her face. She looks back at him, meeting his eyes again, her expression a little disconcerted.

"You really shouldn't provoke supervillains, Miss Ritchi," Megamind says softly, holding her gaze. He pauses, then lets his gaze flick down briefly at the water which is now around Miss Ritchi's ankles. "You find yourself in over your head before you know it."

"You figured out a way to confuse him somehow," Miss Ritchi says.

Megamind smirks.

"Yes, I did," he says.

"What did you do?" she asks.

Megamind allows himself an evil laugh, then clasps his hands behind his back and resumes moving slowly around Miss Ritchi again.

"Do you know how Metro Man found our location during our last interaction, Miss Ritchi?" he asks.

"—super hearing, I'd guess," she says, leaning back against the pole and turning her head to watch him.

"Yes, that's my theory as well," Megamind says. "And it seems that I was correct—even as we speak, Miss Ritchi, Metro Man will be hearing our voices coming from a dozen different directions at once…but only one of these is the correct location; the others, I'm afraid, are empty save for a few fun surprises I've left for our heroic friend to deal with. Which one is the correct one? What do you think the odds of you getting out of this are now, Miss Ritchi?"

He stops in front of her and Miss Ritchi looks at him, her brow wrinkling.

"I mean, it's like an 8% chance he'll pick the right one on the first try," she says, "but the probability of him picking right is gonna rise every time after that, so it really just depends on how long it takes him to go through your traps, and how many times he picks wrong and—no."

Megamind tips his head.

"No?" he says. "No…you admit that Metro Man will be unable to get you out of your current peril?"

She shakes her head, her eyebrows drawing together, not looking away from his face.

"No," she says again, "no; I don't believe you really set it up that way—making twelve different traps for Metro Man and not knowing if he'll even get to all of them; that wouldn't just be overly complicated, it would be—sloppy."

Megamind blinks at her and she makes a sound of understanding, a soft exhalation of breath, almost a laugh, a smile beginning to curve her mouth.

"Stage magic," she says. "This is a shell game, isn't it? No, no, wait, not a shell game—" she grins, wide and gleeful, "—Find the Lady!"

Megamind realizes, a little distantly, that his mouth has fallen open. How—how did she—

Miss Ritchi's smile widens, sharp and oh-so-delighted with herself.

"Which of the three cards on the table is the Queen of Hearts?" she says, "Only of course none of them are, because the dealer's slipped her up his sleeve. None of those places Metro Man hears our voices coming from are right; all twelve are wrong; we're somewhere else entirely!"

Megamind, frozen in place, stares at her, unable to formulate a response, a denial, a—anything, really—

"I'm right, aren't I?" she says, then clicks her tongue mockingly. "And you said you hadn't taken inspiration from anywhere!"

Megamind—Megamind doesn't—how is he supposed to—

"It's too bad you're broadcasting this," Miss Ritchi says sweetly, "because now Metro Man knows your plan."

Megamind flushes hot, his head spinning—god, he'd known she was going to be a formidable opponent, had known she was brilliant, but he still didn't expect—

He pulls himself together, clutching the edge of his cape for reassurance as he draws himself up to his full height.

"Regardless of—regardless!" he says, proud of the fact that there's only a slightly shrill edge to his voice. "Metro Man will still have to go through all thirteen traps before even his super hearing will be able to discern the location of this place! I've soundproofed it to the highest degree possible!"

"So I was right," Miss Ritchi says, looking even more satisfied with herself, a thing Megamind had not previously believed possible, and oh fuck him; she wasn't actually _sure_ before, was she; he could have at least tried to play it off, but instead he just confirmed it for her, for everyone—

Megamind flushes again, swallows convulsively, and tries to snatch at the last sheds of his dignity and self-possession and evil confidence. He realizes how tightly he's holding the edge of his cape, and turns sharply, using his grip on the fabric to make it swirl around his heels. He moves to the console and draws the fingertips of one hand over the edge of the control panel, trying to calm himself.

"It is—such a shame Metro Man didn't think you were worth sacrificing himself for, Miss Ritchi," he says, forcing his voice steady, forcing his tone smooth. "You're really quite clever."

He takes a deep breath and turns to face her, self-confident supervillain smirk firmly in place, the smile of a villain so sure of himself that he can afford to be cordial.

Miss Ritchi is still leaning back against the pole, water around her ankles, looking like a cat that's gotten the canary and framed the dog for the crime.

Megamind mirrors her, leaning back against the console and smiling in his best attempt at villainous insouciance.

"And you had so much to look forward to!" he says, figuring that at this point he might as well continue with his _'I am a sophisticated villain who can afford to be complimentary and who is in no way internally panicking'_ facade. "Such a promising career ahead of you! Your report on the Metrocity dog show was quite impressive; I would have loved to have seen what you could do with a real story."

Miss Ritchi's expression—changes quite abruptly at that, going suddenly blank.

And then she smiles again, but it's nothing like her smile before; this one's cold and hard, and doesn't reach her eyes.

"You know, Megamind," Miss Ritchi says, eyes glittering, "meeting you really has been such a disappointment."

Megamind recoils as if from a slap.

"You act like you're so _brilliant_ , so _original_ ," she says, contempt dripping from the words. "So unique and individual, not like other people at all. You call them all 'mindless drones' like you're something _special_ , like you're _different_ , but really _you're_ _just like everybody else._ "

Megamind stares at her, lost for words. She stares back at him, looking as if the chains on her wrists are the only things preventing her from tearing his throat out with her teeth, and what in god's name is she so angry about?

 _(just like everybody else?)_

Megamind has been insulted countless times, by many people, but no one has ever accused him of _that_.

"I—I beg your pardon?" he manages to say.

Miss Ritchi glares at him, and then her lips twist into a cruel smile.

"I do hope Metro Man finishes with your pointless traps soon," she says. "This is getting boring."

Megamind takes a sharp breath.

"Boring?" he repeats in a low, dangerous tone, beginning to get angry himself, now. "Well, I'd hate for you to be _bored_ , Miss Ritchi. Perhaps we should cease conversing entirely—I could even turn off the broadcast altogether! Of course, Metro Man won't have any clues to your location, then…but I'm sure he'll find your drowned body eventually."

"Oh, by all means," Miss Ritchi says with needle-sharp politeness, "turn off the broadcast! It'll only make it easier for Metro Man to find us if you do."

She moves towards him, as far as the chain will allow, wading through the water until she's at the edge of her platform.

"Because, you see," she says, "I'm going to keep talking—and once the broadcast is off, there will be nothing to interfere with Metro Man's super hearing but your soundproofing, and I'm confident he'll be able to deal with that. Easily. Just like he deals with everything you try."

"My patience," Megamind snarls, moving towards her with deliberate menace, "is not endless, Miss Ritchi. You should watch your tongue."

He stops at the edge of his own platform, stands there with his fists clenched, waiting for her to back down.

She takes one last step forward, the chain pulling taut, not breaking eye contact with him, the intensity of her gaze cold and burning at the same time.

"You should have gagged me," she says, "if you intended me to die quietly, Megamind."

The tank is between them, the edge of it hip-high. Megamind places his hands on it and leans forward.

"I intend," he says, "for you to die _screaming_ , Miss Ritchi."

Miss Ritchi leans forward, too.

"Then _make me_ ," she says.

Megamind's breath hisses through his teeth and Miss Ritchi smiles at him, small and cold.

"Well, barring _that_ happening," she says scathingly, after a moment in which he's too furious to formulate a response, "I suppose we'll have to think of something else to talk about, won't we?" She flashes another of those cold little smiles at him. "What do you say to an interview, Megamind? Seeing as how you admire my reporting skills so much."

She makes the last statement with such sarcastic venom that Megamind leans back, blinking in confusion.

 _(seeing as how you admire my reporting skills so much)_

Why would she say that like—

A memory twists in his mind, one memory out of a hundred others that are almost entirely the same: school, standing by himself at the edge of the playground, and the group of other children who walked towards him _I like your sweater_ one of them said, and then when Megamind said _thank you_ , they all looked at each other and burst into laughter, and Megamind shrank in on himself, shoulders curling inward, fingers curling around the edges of his sleeves and

 _I don't think I'm any too popular with anyone_ Miss Ritchi had said, and they were always sending her out for coffee for their dry cleaning for their lunch, and the way that reporter with the perfect hair talked to her on air and

the utter triviality of that dog show assignment they gave her, the fact that they aired it at such an inconvenient time and

Megamind doesn't know why he's so shocked; he knows all too well what happens to people who dare to go against perfect, wonderful Metro Man; knows exactly what it feels like to be set up to fail and then laughed at for it and

 _just like everyone else_ , she'd said and—

"Yes," he says.

Miss Ritchi blinks at him, looking caught off guard.

"—yes?" she says.

"Yes," Megamind says, "you may interview me, Miss Ritchi."

Miss Ritchi looks at him, her eyes searching his face, her expression somewhere between lost and wary. Silence stretches between the two of them for a long moment.

"…I thought you didn't give interviews," she says uncertainly.

Her shoulders curl in a little after she says it, like she's expecting him to laugh.

"Oh, I think I can make an exception for you, Miss Ritchi," he says, as airily as he can. "Seeing as how you're about to die. Last request, and all that."

He pauses, giving her a chance to reply, but she's still just staring at him like she's waiting for the punchline, and he can't reassure her; he can't; he's the villain; it isn't allowed, and—

okay; something—something else, then…

Megamind leans forward, his hands on the edge of the glass that separates them.

"I did say I'd like to see what you could do with a real story, Miss Ritchi," he says, then bites his lip and smirks at her, trying for something between provoking and inviting. "Why don't you _show_ me?"

Miss Ritchi takes a sharp breath, color flying to her face, her eyes going wide. Her gaze flicks down to his mouth and then back up to his eyes, like she's trying to read the expression.

She swallows visibly, then lifts her chin.

"All right," she says.

* * *

 ** _...to be continued._**

* * *

 **Notes: Someone asked me how old Megamind and Roxanne are in this—they're pretty young at this point, around nineteen or twenty.**

 **The two dogs mentioned are meant to be echoes of Metro Man and Megamind. Valerius means 'to be strong' and 'Ascot' bears a similarity to Metro Man's civilian surname. Hubert means 'bright mind/heart', Heffernan means 'little demon', and Gorman means 'little blue one'. (I got such a kick out of coming up with those names!)**

 **Also, in regards to the last chapter—did you guys recognize Megamind's first-ever deathtrap for Roxanne from anywhere besides _The Pit and the Pendulum_? Because…**

 **…it's actually the first of the pretend deathtraps that Syx makes up for Roxanne in _All In the Golden Afternoon_!**

 **(Another thing I greatly enjoyed including in this!)**

 **Thank you all so much for the get-well wishes for me and the cat! We are both working on getting better—she assisted me in the writing and editing of this chapter by keeping me company, lying on my arm and making me type one-handed, and purring.**

 **(Her name is technically Snooks, but I call her Bunny, Her Majesty, or The Cat.)**

 **And thank you all so much for the reviews on the last chapter; I hope you enjoyed this one, too!**


	5. Chapter 5

"So, Megamind," Miss Ritchi says, "are you really an alien, then?"

Megamind blinkes in surprise.

"I—was not aware that was ever actually in question," he says.

"There are some rumors that you're a superpowered human with a genetic mutation—"

"No," Megamind says. "I'm not human."

"And do you have a superpower?"

Megamind opens his mouth to answer, then stops himself.

"I don't think," he says, "that I'm going to answer that question, Miss Ritchi."

"Surely with a nemesis like Metro Man, you must have some sort of power."

"No comment."

"Superstrength, telepathy…?"

"Miss Ritchi," Megamind says, a warning note in his voice.

She flashes him a cheeky smile, then resumes her professional expression.

"What can you tell me about your reasons for becoming a supervillain?"

"Destiny, Miss Ritchi," he says. "It was destiny."

"What do you mean by that?" she asks.

"I'm evil," Megamind says, "I've always been evil. I've simply decided to put my natural propensity for evil to the best possible use."

"Do you really think there's any best possible use for evil?"

Her tone holds no accusation or condemnation, only skepticism and interest, but Megamind still flinches minutely when she says that, and

(for a terrible half second he's standing on the bridge again, standing there and thinking _'if the cumulative effect on the world of your continued existence is negative, do you not have a moral duty to remove yourself from it?'_ and he's looking down at the water and—)

Megamind raises his chin.

"Of course there is a use for evil," Megamind tells Miss Ritchi now, just as he told himself back then. "Evil is _necessary_. The existence of good requires it. Without evil to balance it, the power of good would grow and spread—more and more regulation and restriction and control, smothering, choking, subjugating everything. Righteousness unopposed is a terrible thing to behold."

"So your choice to become a supervillain was an ideological one, rather than a personal one?" Miss Ritchi says. "Wanting to destroy Metro Man, destroy Metro City—that isn't down to some sort of personal grudge?"

"I don't want to destroy Metrocity," he says. "What—where did you get the idea that I wanted to destroy it?"

Miss Ritchi pauses a moment, looking as taken aback as he feels.

"I mean—you demanded that Metro Man surrender the city to you," she says.

"To _rule!_ Not to _destroy_ ," Megamind says. "I will conquer Metrocity and reign over it as Evil Overlord!"

"—I see," Miss Ritchi says. "Well, thank you for that…clarification. And Metro Man?"

"…do I want to destroy Metro Man?"

"Is your rivalry with him simply a matter of principle, or of him being an obstacle to your goal of ruling the city? Or is it personal?"

Megamind—sort of freezes at the question.

"I—I don't see how that matters," he says, and he can hear how stiff he sounds, can see by the way Miss Ritchi's expression changes that this answer isn't going to satisfy her.

(fuck fuck fuck; he didn't think this interview through; he didn't think this through at all oh god he's such an idiot)

"Metro Man and I have known each other for quite some time," he says, and hopes that she'll let him just leave it at that.

(please let him just leave it at that)

"—ah," Miss Ritchi says, "so it _is_ personal."

(of course she won't let him just leave it at that)

Megamind shrugs, the motion sharp and uncomfortable.

"It was fate, again, Miss Ritchi," he says. "That's all. Perhaps it is personal, but it's not— _merely_ personal. Even without our—history—I would always have been—morally and ide-olo-gic-ally opposed to Metro Man."

He winces internally, realizing too late that he has mispronounced the word, has put the emphasis in all the wrong places—that he's gesturing too much, gesturing wrong—quick fluttering motions of his hands, nervous and uncertain instead of controlled and dramatic.

He drops his hands to the edge of the tank and grips it tightly, clenches his teeth in front of his inept, alien tongue, waits for her to laugh, to correct his pronunciation, to—

"What happened?" she asks softly.

Megamind's breath hisses through his gritted teeth, the shock of unexpected mercy stinging almost as much as the expected insult would have.

Miss Ritchi looks at him, and he feels caught by her gaze, held captive by the—the sympathy he thinks he sees in them, but he's—he's imagining that; he's imagining it, and he needs to—

"Megamind—"

"I don't wish to speak any more on this subject, Miss Ritchi," he says, words rapped out hard and fast and forceful.

He tears his gaze from hers, turns his head to the side so that he can't be tempted to look at her again, tempted to look at her and actually tell her—

There's a moment of silence.

"All right," Miss Ritchi says. "Well—would you like to discuss your experiences as an extraterrestrial?"

Megamind forgets he's trying not to look at her. He turns his head and meets her gaze.

"I…suppose," he says cautiously.

"You've said you're not human," she says, "but were you born here on earth?"

"No, I was not," Megamind says.

"Are there any others like you here on earth?"

"Worried about the prospect of an alien invasion?" Megamind asks, unable to keep the bitterness from his tone. "No. There are no other members of my species here."

Miss Ritchi tilts her head.

" _Should_ I be worried about the prospect of an alien invasion?" she asks, sounding more curious than alarmed.

Megamind's lips twist into a humorless, ironic smile.

"Definitely not from my species," he says. "I wouldn't know about any others."

"You're not in contact with any other aliens?"

Megamind raises his eyebrows. _No_ isn't exactly a completely honest answer; there's Minion, of course, and Metro Man. But he knows that's not really what Miss Ritchi is asking.

"Am I in contact with anyone on another planet or spaceship?" he says, rephrasing the question. "No, I am not."

"So why are you here on earth?"

"Bad luck," Megamind says.

Miss Ritchi frowns.

"Were you sent here? Or do you mean you crash-landed?"

"Both," Megamind says. "I was—sent here as a child, following a—a cataclysmic event on my home planet."

"You—came here in a spaceship, then?"

"A pod," Megamind says flatly. "Yes."

"What was it like?"

Something in her tone surprises him; he tilts his head curiously.

"What was what like?"

Her face looks—softer, somehow. Unguarded. Her lips are parted and she's leaning towards him, eyes shining.

"Space," she says, and he realizes what he's hearing in her voice is longing. "What was it like?"

"—terrifying," he says, without thinking. "Terrifying and beautiful."

"In spite of being terrifying?"

"Not in spite of," Megamind says, shaking his head without looking away from her. "No—it's—have you ever been alone in the water at night? Far enough out that you can't touch the bottom and you can't see the shoreline in the dark? And maybe you can see the city lights and the stars, but they're both in the distance, and other than that, it's just the darkness all around you, darkness in every direction, so much darkness you could drown in it. And if you drowned, it wouldn't care. And it would still be just as beautiful."

Miss Ritchi swallows, and the longing in her eyes doesn't fade at all.

"Beautiful because it's terrifying," she says.

"Yes," Megamind says. "Yes, exactly."

"What was your planet like?"

Megamind's smile fades, and his fingers tighten on the edge of the glass once more. He looks down at them, at the water beyond them. Miss Ritchi's hands are entirely submerged, the water a little above her waist now, but she still doesn't look concerned.

"Water," he says, in a subdued voice. "There was water everywhere. Waterways and rivers instead of roads, and pools and fountains, and floating gardens. "

"It sounds beautiful," Miss Ritchi says softly, and Megamind looks up from his hands, from the water, and into her face.

"It was," he says, throat tight.

"You must miss it," she says, and her expression—

There's—it is sympathy he reads in her eyes; he's not just imagining it. Sympathy and—there's also a kind of intensely focused attention in the way she's holding herself, the way she's looking at him. It—shines out of her, drawing him in, and he's aware, distantly, that the cameras are still on, that he's being watched, but somehow that doesn't really seem to matter when she's looking at him like that.

( _tell me_ , her eyes say. _tell me everything._ )

"—I look up, here," Megamind says, "and the stars are in the wrong places."

He hears the soft, uneven breath she takes. She sways in place, sways towards him, her eyes fixed on his face, as if she feels the same kind of pull towards him as he feels towards her.

"What—" she says.

Behind him, the warning alarm in the console goes off, loud and shrill, the indication that Metro Man has defeated the last of his traps, and will shortly be on his way.

The moment shatters.

And the realization of all the things he's been saying to Miss Ritchi slams into Megamind; oh god; how could he have told her all that, said all that, not just to her, but said it with the cameras on and with everyone watching and—

Megamind steps quickly back from the tank and whirls away, cape swirling around him.

"Once again," he says, without looking over his shoulder, moving swiftly towards the exit, fleeing not just from the prospect of Metro Man's arrival, but from her, from the cameras, from the entire situation, "once again it seems that Metro Man will be in time to save you! Your good fortune continues, Miss Ritchi—beware that it may not always do so!"

He ducks through the emergency exit without waiting for her reply, leaps onto the getaway motorcycle he has waiting, and, without being intercepted by Metro Man at all, succeeds in getting to Evil Lair, where he very promptly has a panic attack.

* * *

It's his own damn fault, he admits to himself, sitting in the bath, his arms wrapped around his knees, shivering in spite of the warmth of the water. Miss Ritchi is very good at her job, but it's still his fault for being so stupidly susceptible—ask him a few questions, display just the slightest hint of interest, of sympathy, and he just rolls over and spills his guts, so desperate, so pathetic, so—

 _(I look up, here, and the stars are in the wrong places.)_

Megamind gives a low moan of distress and pushes the heels of his hands into his eye sockets. What had possessed him to say something so—so—unguarded and vulnerable and—

—true.

So terribly, terribly true; the stars in this planet's skies are in the wrong places, like someone gathered up the heavens and shook them and carelessly let them fall and scatter, and it's a damn good thing that interview was interrupted before Megamind could say that to Miss Ritchi.

He'd give anything to see the sky on M'ega just one more time, to see his own constellations.

(his mother's hand pointing at the sky, connecting the stars with invisible lines; his father's voice, telling him the names— _this is Alte-re, Queen of the Stars; you see her arms, open to embrace you? you see the guiding star in her hand, to light your way? and there is Ivri-roh beside her, do you see? Ivri-roh, who—_ )

Megamind pulls his hands from his eyes with a hurt sound and ducks beneath the water.

* * *

Megamind's interview with Miss Ritchi airs on every channel in the city.

* * *

The next day, Metro Man gives her an interview.

* * *

Miss Ritchi's interview with Metro Man is nothing like her interview with Megamind—there's no rising water, no threat of danger. The two of them sit in the tastefully decorated parlor of the Scott family home.

"I just want to be the best superhero possible for Metro City," Wayne says, sincere, earnest conviction in his voice.

(Wayne believes it; believes what he's saying, Megamind knows. That's part of why people find Wayne so charming. And what makes Metro Man so damn dangerous, that—that utter certainty of his own righteousness, that anything he does must be right simply because he's the one who's doing it.)

"Megamind has hinted that the two of you have some unpleasant past history," Miss Ritchi says. "What can you tell me about that?"

"You know, I really wish I knew what he was talking about," Wayne says, spreading his hands in a gesture of baffled innocence.

Miss Ritchi narrows her eyes.

"But surely you must have some idea," she says.

An expression of annoyance flickers in Wayne's face, so quickly covered that it's almost invisible.

"Well, we knew each other in school," he says, "and Megamind was always kind of—well, you know, a little jealous of me. And he's always been kinda unbalanced. I think maybe he's worked all that up in his mind into some big imagined injury, you know?"

"But—"

Miss Ritchi's gaze flicks to the side of the screen briefly, as though something behind the camera has caught her eye. For a moment, she looks almost frustrated, but then she presses her lips together, looks back at Metro Man, and smiles.

"I see," she says.

The interview ends with Wayne demonstrating his accuracy with his eye lasers, shooting at different targets, hitting them all perfectly.

(evidently he has been practicing.)

* * *

The day after the interview with Metro Man, the local tabloids report eyewitness accounts of seeing Miss Ritchi out on a date with Metro Man at one of the city's most expensive restaurants. There are pictures, grainy and out of focus.

* * *

One week later, every newspaper and magazine in town reports that Roxanne Ritchi is to attend the Metro City Charity Ball as Metro Man's personal guest.

* * *

 ** _...to be continued._**

* * *

 **notes: thank you all for the reviews; I really appreciate getting them so much! Her Majesty The Cat is doing better, now, and I'm gradually getting over my bronchitis, too.**

 **I hope you all enjoyed the new chapter!**


	6. Chapter 6

The ball is in full swing; all of the guests are in the main ballroom of Metrocity's City Hall, talking and laughing and drinking champagne.

Megamind, by contrast, is hiding in a rather cramped janitorial closet.

 _There's really nothing quite so sad,_ Megamind thinks, _as music from another room, a room full of people enjoying themselves at a party that you haven't been invited to._

He makes a face and checks his watch again. Minion and the brainbots should all be in position; he won't have to wait much longer in this singularly depressing closet.

(he knows how to dance; not just ordinary dancing, but real dancing, ballroom dancing; he's watched enough old movies to know all the steps, has gone through them by himself, and even if he hasn't ever actually danced with a partner, he's pretty sure he'd be able to—)

Ridiculous sentimentality. He's a supervillain; he's not—not _Cinderella_ , for fuck's sake. He shouldn't want to join this ball; he should want to ruin it, to smash it, and he does, of course he does, yes, obviously, but—

( _always been jealous of me_ , Megamind remembers Wayne saying)

Megamind scowls at the closet door.

 _Megamind's always been jealous of me_ , Wayne had said, dismissive and easy, as if that accounted for everything, and Megamind can't imagine even trying to explain—what could he say?

 _'he tortured me for years when we were growing up'?_

 _'going to school each day felt like going to war'?_

 _'sometimes I'd hope to die in my sleep so I wouldn't have to go to school the next day'?_

That's not a villainous origin story; that's just— _pathetic_.

And the thought of telling—

(her)

—of telling anyone the real reason he dislikes Metro Man gives Megamind a hot, sick kind of feeling in the pit of his stomach, as if he's swallowed poison, makes him want to curl into himself and hide in the dark.

Knowing they all think he's just childishly jealous of Metro Man is bad enough, feels like a stone in his chest, but that's all right; it is; he can live with that,

 _Besides, it's not as if it's exactly untrue, now is it, Megamind? Haven't you always envied Wayne his human appearance? his unquestioned acceptance in society? his ability to be good and to do good; the way he can so easily make people like him?_

 _That horrible hot-and-cold feeling that washed through you when you watched that interview he gave with Miss Ritchi; the sickening twist in your chest when you saw those articles about them dating—if that's not envy, then what is it?_

Megamind glares even harder at the closet door.

Fucking of course it's envy.

Not that Miss Ritchi dating Wayne precludes Megamind continuing to kidnap her—on the contrary; he now has the perfect reason to continue!

And he very definitely does want to continue; not only has Miss Ritchi already been a positive influence on Metro Man, inspiring him to gain better control over his eye lasers, but also—she's _fun_.

Megamind hadn't realized how very little joy his life had contained until he met Miss Ritchi and suddenly he was having fun.

She's much more challenging than Metro Man—a statement which Megamind is sure would sound ridiculous if he tried to explain it to anyone else. After all, Metro Man is, thus far, invincible, and Megamind is yet to win a single fight against him.

But Megamind's battles with Metro Man are really just a matter of trial and error tests searching for any possible weakness, and of aiming Metro Man's heroics at suitable targets—parts of the city that can use a little destruction, doomsday devices that can be harmlessly destroyed, Megamind, et-cet-era.

Not at all the same kind of intellectual challenge that Miss Ritchi, with her clever mind and her sharp tongue and her maddening lack of fear, offers.

So really, Megamind should be happy that the hero has won her over, that she and Metro Man are dating now! It makes everything so much easier!

But it's just—

Well.

Miss Ritchi, wanting to make a name for herself in Metrocity, hadn't tried to gain Metro Man's approval, but had, instead, chosen to attract Megamind's attention.

It had been—flattering and—and nice, really, thinking that just for once, just for this one person, he was more important than Metro Man.

Megamind's lips twist bitterly.

He should have known it wouldn't last.

In the distant ballroom, the orchestra continues to play and Megamind rubs a hand over his face, realizing a moment too late that—ah, fuck, has he screwed up his eyeliner? Shit—

He looks around the closet for anything with a reflective surface that he could possibly use as a mirror. Finding nothing, he's forced to take the de-gun from his holster and try to angle it so that he can see his reflection in the glass barrel of it.

Metro Man may have won over Miss Ritchi, but Megamind is damned if he's going to be shown up completely, and he is doubly damned if he's going to do this evil plot with smudged eyeliner.

Megamind, regarding his reflection critically, decides, with a sigh of relief that his eyeliner hasn't smeared. Using the waterproof kind for this particular plot was definitely the right choice. He holsters the gun again, careful not to ruin the lines of his costume.

Minion had been very excited to create a suitably fancy outfit for Megamind to wear during this evil plan, and Megamind is really quite pleased with how it turned out. The black suit, complete with black tie, is as formal and well-tailored as any worn by the guests in the ballroom, although there are spikes on the shoulders of his coat, holding his long black cape in place, the trousers are close-fitted enough to allow him to wear his holster, and the high, flared collars of the shirt, waistcoat, and coat give the whole ensemble a pleasingly elegant, almost regency-era effect.

Through the closet door, he hears the music change and wonders if Miss Ritchi is dancing with Metro Man.

Megamind makes a face. If he has to listen to one more song—

An explosion in the distance makes him jump. The orchestra music falters discordantly into silence.

Megamind grins to himself.

Excellent! The first contingent of brainbots has detonated the bomb he planted for Metro Man's distraction!

Megamind has always hated that particular public statue near the fountain; not only is it aesthetically distasteful; it was made to commemorate one of the city's more unpleasant—but rich—historical figures. And, most conveniently, it's located distant enough from the City Hall building that, with Metro Man lured away to it's explosion, Megamind will have time to make his entrance here.

He rolls his shoulders, nerves and excitement beginning to twist pleasurably in his stomach. Almost time, now…

The single lightbulb in the little closet abruptly flickers out.

Ah! Minion has successfully taken control of the building's power!

Megamind bounces a few times on his toes, rolls his shoulders, getting mentally prepared, then pulls on his night vision goggles.

Showtime!

* * *

The crowd in the ballroom is confused and agitated, but not in an outright panic; as Megamind makes his way through it, he hears several people speculating that the explosion they heard must have damaged the power lines.

He reaches the stage with the orchestra and hops up on it; the orchestra members, seen through his night vision goggles, are still seated, speaking amongst themselves. Megamind moves to stand a little apart from them, then pulls off his goggles.

In the darkness, he reaches for his watch and presses the button that will send a signal to Minion that he's in position.

The power comes on, but the bright lights in the ballroom do not. Instead, in the darkness, music begins. Not the music of the orchestra, this time, but the recorded music that Megamind chose especially for this evil plot.

Under cover of the music and darkness, Megamind quickly dehydrates the goggles and shoves the cube in his pocket, then replaces his gun in its holster.

A low red light begins to illuminate the ballroom and, at the same time, smoke begins to roll over the floor, curling around the members of the crowd. The red light tints the smoke red, makes it look like blood in water, billowing and unfurling.

Oh, that is an excellent effect; breaking in last night to slip the red gels into the lights and set up the smoke machines was definitely worth the effort. In the dim illumination, Megamind can see that the crowd is growing steadily more agitated.

The music continues to rise: the backbeat of drums, the electric keyboard in the background giving it a frenetic, floating quality, and the smooth simplicity of the electric guitar—the song's slower and more slick than the music Megamind normally favors, but the low red lights and the smoke turn the song's smooth sensuality into something much more sinister, giving it an edge of menace.

A spotlight hits Megamind, perfectly on cue, lighting him up just as the lyrics begin, and a collective gasp, interspersed with a few screams, goes through the room, nearly drowning out the words of the song.

 _I heat up; I can't cool down_

 _You got me spinning_

 _'round and 'round_

Megamind throws his arms wide.

"Ladies and gentlemen!" he says. "I'm so pleased you could all join me here tonight!"

He looks out at the crowd, scanning the faces rapidly, searching for—

There she is.

Miss Ritchi, standing near the front of the crowd, wearing a red gown, looks back at him, and Megamind's heartbeat kicks into a faster tempo.

(perfect; perfect; this is going to be perfect; he won't allow it to be anything else)

 _'Round and 'round and 'round it goes_

 _Where it stops, nobody knows_

"Welcome," he says, smiling and showing his teeth, "to the show of your lives." He lets his smile widen. "The last show of your lives—unless you all do exactly as I tell you."

The agitation of the crowd increases, but Miss Ritchi doesn't look afraid. Without breaking eye contact with him, she tilts her chin up.

"And why should we do anything you say, Megamind?" she says, voice ringing out above the noise of the crowd.

Another gasp, almost as shocked as the one that greeted Megamind's appearance, ripples through the crowd, and Megamind barely restrains himself from clapping in glee.

"Ah, Miss Ritchi!" he says. "I was just going to ask for a volunteer from the crowd; so obliging of you to offer!"

 _Every time you call my name_

 _I heat up like a burning flame_

From the corner of his eyes, Megamind sees the members of the crowd nearest to Miss Ritchi draw away from her fearfully, but most of his attention is focused on her.

"Why don't you join me," he says, "on the stage?"

Miss Ritchi's lips part, color flying to her cheeks, a look somewhere between outrage and incredulous amusement on her face.

"Wh—no!" she says.

Megamind arches an eyebrow.

"No?" he says. "Not even if I say the magic word?"

"Ha!" she says. "As if you've ever said please in your life, Megamind!"

Megamind smiles at her, and then he lifts his hand, a deliberate, theatrical move, timed with the music that's still playing in the background.

"Please," he says.

And he snaps his fingers.

The overhead sprinklers turn on at the click of his fingers and just as the chorus kicks in—

 _Abra-abracadabra_

 _I wanna reach out and grab ya_

—and all of the brainbots that he and Minion meticulously dehydrated and hid around the room earlier burst into being, apparently from thin air. As the bots rise up into the air, their excited bowging mingling with the shrieks of the crowd, Megamind throws his arms wide and his head back and laughs.

 _Abra-abracadabra_

 _Abracadabra_

"Didn't I tell you all that you were in for a show?" he cries, raising his voice to be heard above the crowd. The sprinklers, having served their purpose, turn off again. "Oh, but what is a magician without his lovely assistant? And what better paragon of beauty could Metrocity offer than Metro Man's paramour? Miss Ritchi…? Or do my brainbots need to do some more…convincing?"

He pauses expectantly, looking at her. The crowd has drawn together, away from the brainbots that have taken up their posts all along all of the walls, and they all look at her as well.

Miss Ritchi glares up at Megamind, and for a thrilling moment, he thinks she might actually call his bluff and refuse again, in which case he doesn't know what he'll do—

But then her gaze flicks around to the people watching the two of them, to the brainbots hovering threateningly along the perimeter of the room. Megamind can almost see the thoughts flickering through her mind.

These people are convinced that Megamind is capable of following through with the worst of his threats, and even if Miss Ritchi isn't—

They'll never forgive her if she refuses. Never.

But if she agrees—

Oh, if she agrees? They're going to love her.

Miss Ritchi's eyes meet his again, and her chin goes up.

"Fine," she says. "I'll play along."

She lifts the skirt of her wet dress a few inches and walks towards the stage, head up, steps slow and dignified.

Megamind bites his lip against a grin and moves to the steps that lead up to the stage and holds out a hand to her.

To his utter shock, she actually takes it and allows him to help her up the stairs. Megamind is so taken aback that, when she gets to the top of the stage, it takes him a long moment to remember to let go of her hand.

They're very close, much closer than Megamind anticipated; he hadn't thought she'd actually take his hand and let him help her, had thought she'd slap it away or turn up her nose or say something cutting, and he'd planned out several very clever things to say in turn, but right now he can't think of any of them, and they wouldn't work now anyway—

Miss Ritchi's hair is wet, clinging in damp strands to her jaw and brow, and as he watches, a droplet of water slides down the curve of her cheek.

Megamind drops her hand and takes a step back from her, turns quickly to the crowd once more.

"Let's have some applause for Miss Ritchi!" he says, the uncertainty and confusion he still feels lending an edge to his voice.

The people in the crowd must hear it, because they comply, clapping.

Miss Ritchi glances sharply at him; he sees it from the corner of his eyes, but he's careful not to look at her. She's already got him off-balance; he can't afford another clash with her until he's managed to pull himself together a bit.

Instead, and as the people applaud, he gestures to the nearest brainbot, who bobs in the air in acknowledgement before swiveling their eyestalk to look at the other bots. They bowg sharply, and at this signal, several of the bots separate from the others and fly towards the stage.

Minion really is doing very well with the technical cues tonight, Megamind thinks, as the music unobtrusively fades away under the cover of the applause; all that extra time spent rehearsing is certainly paying off.

Megamind waves an imperious hand at the crowd, and the people obediently stop applauding.

"Well, ladies and gentlemen," he says, "I promised you a show, didn't I? Let's begin."

He looks over at the bots hovering above the stage with him.

"Now," he says.

At the command, the onstage bots immediately begin to—

Someone in the audience gives a shriek of horrified shock and Megamind smiles to himself.

Yes, to the audience it no doubt looks as if the bots are disassembling themselves. Really, of course, they're just removing the completely non-functional extra prosthetics and assorted metal bits that Megamind attached to them for tonight's show. And once the bots have finished removing the pieces…

"Yes," he says, "as you can see, my cyborg helpers are busily engaged in constructing the contraption for tonight's climactic conclusion! Can you guess what it is, Miss Ritchi?"

He looks over at her again; she's watching the brainbots work, an expression of keen interest on her face, but she looks back at him when he says her name.

"Well, since I see you've decided to go full-out with the stage magic this time, Megamind," she says, raising her voice to match his, so that her words carry throughout the ballroom, "I'm going to guess…sawing the lady in half?"

He grins at her.

"Absolutely correct, Miss Ritchi!" he says. "And I'm sure you can guess who the unlucky lady is. Speaking of which—wrists out, Miss Ritchi."

Again there's a moment in which she doesn't obey and he thinks perhaps she'll refuse. But instead she gives a little huff of annoyance and holds her wrists out to him.

Megamind's grin widens. Oh, this is going splendidly! He reaches for the knot of the necktie he's wearing, tugs it loose, and takes off the tie. Miss Ritchi's eyes widen a little as he does, and she takes a quick breath—nervous about being tied up? He wouldn't have guessed so, but then, she's never been conscious before while he's been tying her up.

Watching her face, he reaches out and secures the tie around her wrists, tight enough to keep her from freeing herself but loose enough that she won't be uncomfortable—really, the bindings aren't for any practical purpose; this is just about the show. Maybe Miss Ritchi realizes this, because she glances down at her wrists when he's done, then raises her eyes to his and arches an eyebrow.

Megamind turns away and steps back from her again, spinning quickly to make his cape flare. He smiles at the audience and spreads his arms.

"For my next trick—disappearances!"

He waves a hand at another of the bots, and it moves forward with several of its brethren. This group isn't wearing any extra prosthetics; instead, they each carry a black bag.

"My bots will be going around, making a collection," he says, letting his hand rest oh-so-casually on the handle of his de-gun. "Wallets and jewelry, which of course includes watches, cufflinks, and tie pins. Hand them over to the brainbots."

Miss Ritchi makes a quiet noise; he turns to look at her and sees her twist her mouth as if she's tasted something bitter.

"Robbery?" she says. "Really?"

Megamind narrows his eyes at her, more nettled than he'd like to admit by her expression and tone.

"Let's call it _charity_ ," he says. "That is, after all, what we're all here for tonight, isn't it?"

Miss Ritchi presses her lips together.

"There's a bit of a difference" she says, "between the Open Hand Foundation collecting donations for the Metro City Children's Home and you stealing people's jewelry!"

"Is there?" Megamind asks. He moves towards her, slow, menacing steps, then begins to circle her. "And what if I promise to donate seventeen percent of my ill-gotten gains from tonight to the Metrocity Children's Home?"

"Seventeen percent?" Miss Ritchi says, turning her head to look at him.

"Hmm, yes; perhaps you're right," Megamind says, "It isn't a very high percentage, is it? Still—" he flashes a thin, hard smile at her. "—I've never claimed to be anything but evil. So I'll be having the jewelry."

Miss Ritchi shoots him a glare.

"Fine," she says, and raises her bound hands.

She tugs the pearl stud earrings—the only jewelry she's wearing—from her ears and holds them out to him.

Megamind, startled, merely looks at her.

He—well, he hadn't actually meant for her to give him her jewelry. The rest of the people here, yes, but—

"For _charity_ ," she says sarcastically.

When he doesn't take the pearls from her, she makes a noise of impatience and drops them. Megamind reaches out and catches them before they can fall.

Miss Ritchi looks at him, scorn in her eyes and in the proud arch of her neck.

Megamind closes his fingers over the pearl earrings and turns away from her.

(it doesn't matter. it doesn't matter, her looking at him like that. it doesn't matter. he doesn't care.)

"Ah! It appears the brainbots have completed the construction of the mechanism!" he says, and jerks his head in Miss Ritchi's direction.

The bots on the stage fly towards her and herd her towards the deathtrap.

It is—necessarily—a very simple trap, constructed of what metal pieces he could attach to the bots: a very narrow metal table with manacles for Miss Ritchi's ankles and a hook for her tied hands, and a large circular saw, made of the detachable upper fins from the brainbots all fitted cunningly together, set on a metal stand.

The brainbots secure Miss Ritchi in place and a murmur of horror sweeps through the crowd of people. Megamind glances over at the sound.

Ah, good; it appears as if the bots doing the jewelry and wallets collection have finished. One bot catches his eye and moves its metal hands in a quick series of motions: the signal, radioed to them by Minion, that Metro Man has finally finished with the decoys, and is on his way back to the courthouse.

Megamind slips the earrings into his pocket and steps up to the deathtrap.

"For my final trick!" he cries, and spins the crank on the saw backwards, winding it.

He lets it go.

The saw whirrs to life with a loud buzzing, spinning swiftly, only a foot from Miss Ritchi's midsection. Someone in the crowd screams and Megamind reaches into his other pocket, stepping back from the deathtrap.

An electric guitar chord rips through the ballroom; the last of Minion's sound cues, and Megamind throws the smoke bomb on the stage down by his feet and draws his de-gun in the puff of smoke.

The brainbots throw their smoke bombs, too, and in the resulting smoke and chaos, no one really notices when Megamind shoots out one of the nearest ballroom windows. As soon as the glass breaks and he reholsters the gun, the bots scoop him up, flying in a swarm through the broken window and out into the night.

* * *

The reports of the incident, which appear on every Metrocity news channel and in each newspaper and magazine, are quite satisfactory. No actual video footage, more's the pity—Megamind, of course, has the recordings from the brainbots, but it had been necessary to avoid broadcasting during the evil plot, so he's the only one who does have the footage.

Several enterprising members of the press did take photographs during the robbery, though, and the ones the newspapers and magazines choose to run are all fairly good. There's one in particular which he very much likes, a photograph of the stage, the brainbots swirling around himself and Miss Ritchi. He's in the middle of turning, his cape flared and one hand outstretched in a theatrical gesture, his other resting on the de-gun at his hip. Miss Ritchi is standing beside him, her hands bound, the black of his tie stark against the red of her dress, her head turned just slightly as she looks at him, the strong line of her jaw displayed perfectly.

Miss Ritchi herself gives a report after Metro Man frees her from the deathtrap in which Megamind left her. Megamind, safely at home in the lair with Minion and the brainbots, watches it. She summarizes the circumstances of the hostage taking and robbery with her usual incisive accuracy.

She's—less scathing about Megamind himself than he expects, especially considering her the disapproval she so blatantly demonstrated during the proceedings.

"Simple robbery seems a little out of character for Metro City's self-proclaimed supervillain," she says, and tilts her head. "One has to wonder if maybe it wasn't quite so simple after all."

The words that run along the bottom of the screen during her report read:

 _Roxanne Ritchi, KCMP investigative reporter._

She smiles at Metro Man when he gives his little speech about his part in her rescue.

Megamind, her pearl earrings held loosely in his hand, feels a strange sort of sharp pain in his chest, as if he's swallowed a piece of broken glass.

 _Well done, Miss Ritchi,_ he thinks.

* * *

Three months later, KCMP investigative reporter Roxanne Ritchi breaks her first real story.

 _"Scandal at the Open Hand Charitable Foundation! Evidence has come to light of widespread financial mismanagement by the foundation's board of directors. Embezzlement? Or merely incompetence? That remains to be seen, but it seems that, of all the funds collected by the Open Hand Foundation in the last year, only seventeen percent actually made its way to the intended recipients. Where did the rest of the money go? This reporter has..."_

* * *

 ** _…to be continued._**

* * *

 **notes: Thank you for all of the comments!**

 **And thank you for all of the well wishes for me and the cat. Her Majesty actually wasn't quite as over her illness as we thought; she got sick again. But I have a new medication I've been giving her, and she seems to be improving—hopefully for real, this time!**

 **The song Megamind uses during his evil plot in this chapter is Abracadabra, by the Steve Miller Band.**

 **I hope you all enjoyed the new chapter!**


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